Cost of success in life is high
A word of warning to those in
the class of 1993 who are only
now beginning to think about
a job search: You might as well resign
yourselves to working at McDonald’s
for a while before you land that first
job.
As May draws near, we will be
treated to hard-luck stories of MBAs
working in warehouses and psychol
ogy majors working as poorly paid
secretaries. We will be bombarded
with statistics from the Labor Depart
ment bemoaning the fact that gradu
ates face the toughest job market in 20
or 30 years.
This is being tied in with the term
“generation war.” Twenty somethings
feej left out and dumped on, while
their elders — baby boomers, the
World War II generation—get all the
jobs and benefits. Founders of the
“Lead or Leave” movement make the
talk-show rounds and square off with
their opposite numbers in the Gray
Panthers and the American Associa
tion of Retired Persons.
I thought we got rid of generational
angst when “Thirtysomething” went
off the air. I get tired of the legions of
former mall rats whining that “my life
didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to.”
Neither has mine. Life is tough. Live
with it.
What success in this world comes
down to is attitude and hard work. The
mistake too many grads make is as
suming thata$40,000-a-year job will
be waiting for them the minute they
get their sheepskin and that they’re
entitled to it. If they send out a dozen
resumes with no result, it’s OK togivc
up. With this kind of attitude, grads
deserve to work in a “McJoo ’ for
eternity. Perseverance pays off.
My two college careers are ex
amples of this. My first, from 1982 to
1986, was an orgy of drunkenness. I
spent most of my lime partying, doing
what was needed to pass and liulc
else. Law school, from 1986 to 1989,
• - J - a
I resolved to do
everything
necessary to
succeed and let
nothing stand in my
way. If it comes off
as arrogance at
times, so be it. It
works.
was much the same story. I worried
about getting drunk, not getting grades.
Two words summed it all up:
wasted potential. Like Marlon Brando
in “On the Waterfront,” I could have
been a contender instead of a bum.
As a result of such a sterling record,
I got few job offers after law school.
The one I did take was as an assistant
district attorney in a small western
Kansas town for an abysmally low
salary. Fortunately, it didn’t last long;
I might have lost my mind otherwise.
After drifting around for a few
years, taking a few McJobs, 1 decided
— after much serious thought — that
I wanted to leach history at the univer
sity level. Three years after I thought
I’d taken my last Final, I subjected
myself to the rigors of a master’s
pre m.
re was a difference this time. I
got religion. I gave up boozing and
have recently become engaged to a
wonderful woman, thereby removing
my two largest early impediments to
success.
I also developed an attitude that far
too few of my generational cohorts
have. I learned that I have to rely on
myself — that depending on the gov
ernment or anyone else in any large
part for my success is setting myself
up for failure. I’m not sitting around
complaining about how life isn’t fair;
I know it’s not It’s inherently unfair.
I resolved to do everything necessary
to succeed and let nothing stand in my
way. If it comes off as arrogance at
times, so be it. It works.
For the past year, my life has been
a frenzy of activity with the promise ,
of a payoff several years down the
road. I am making two presentations
to conferences this semester, and have
one more ready for June. In addition
to my thesis, I have a major indepen
dent research project in the works for
publication.
I’m submitting papers leftand right
for publication, for fellowships, for
scholarships, you name it. The last
month alone left me frazzled and feel
ing overextended, because some cos
mic conspiracy dictated that every
application I’ve filled out be due on
March 1 or March 15.
Do I have to do any of this? Except
for the thesis, strictly speaking, I do
not. I choose to run myself ragged
now because I know that it will pay off
when I’m looking alPh.D. programs,
and later for a teaching job. Those
with the most achievements demon
strating excellence get the jobs. All
others fall by the wayside. It’s a tru
ism in any job market.
No one is going to give anything
away, and it’s not going to be easy.
Success comes from thorough prepa
ration and hard work, from telling
yourself that you will not be beaten,
that momentary hardship will pass,
that sincere effort will be rewarded.
Kepfldd is a graduate student in history,
an alumnus of the UNL College of Law, and
a Daily Nebraskan columnist
Birthday is chance to reflect
This may be an ordinary
Wednesday for everyone
else, but not for me. I face the
prospect of finding cards in my mail
that say things like, “You’re at that
special age! If you were a lizard,
you’d be a belt!”
It’s my thirtysomething birthday.
Not a milestone, mind you. Merely
another opportunity to reflect upon
the many things that I forgot to do by
now.
I forgot to be driving a restored
1956 ragtop T-bird. I forgot to be
living in a luxurious, self-sufficient
earth home near Scdona, Ariz., where
some of my frequent guests would be
Tom Robbins, Eric Clapton and Al
Gore. I forgot to be riding the crest of
international fame that could trans
port me safely to the heart of Tibet, or
even Mecca.
Most of all, I forgot to have kids.
It was a calculated omission. For
10 years, I’ve been eating little hor
mone pills that arc perfectly safe until
I take a drag off a Camel Light. Then
a little hose in my brain will explode
and my friends will get to wipe spittle
from the comers of my mouth when
they visit me.
Thai’s the price you pay to be a
globally ecological woman. After all,
the underlying source of all of our
environmental crises appears to be us.
We are the only things that there arc
too many of. There are 5.5 billion of
us now. If we continue to reproduce
like bunnies, that number could nearly
double by 2025, when I’m
sixtysomething, and society is drop
ping us old farts like pigeons off a
bam.
About 11 million people is nearly
enough to buy all of the brand new
vehicles parked on acres of arable
land across this country, but I suspect
that many will fall into the income
group that demands keys al gunpoint.
Twice as many people may not
seem like much of a threat here in the
bread basket where you can hike for a
couple of hours and find yourself in
the middle of the wilderness. The
I_1
For a while, I
wasn’t aware of the
way I looked at
babies in high
chairs at Village Inn.
consequences of population explo
sion are more evident in China, where
they have to cultivate everything that
isn’t solid rock to feed themselves, or
in Calcutta, where they can ’ t sit down.
Now, I don’t mean to frighten any
one, but for the sake of perspective,
let’s imagine twice as many people,
here in Lincoln, at Shopko on Christ
mas Eve day.
The problem with my environmen
tally responsible childlessness is that
it’s due to something more mundane
than global concern.
I’m terrified of having children.
It began long ago with my mother’s
frustrated battle cry, “Just wait until
you have kids of your own!”
My father automatically cursed
anyone under 20. They were “damn
kids!”
I was unimpressed with the joys of
parenthood.
Later, when my friends began to
have babies because they could, I’d
sit in their distinctly baby-smelling
houses and listen to childbirth con
versations. A graphic discussion of
childbirth can subdue a maternal in
stinct for a couple of years.
Besides the apparent excruciation
of giving birth, most women, except
for a half dozen that the rest of us
would like to kill, look like a
steamrollered, heroin-addicted sack
of wet marshmallows after childbirth.
Not that I normally look much belter, |
but I can’t afford to lose any ground.
Not at my age.
Women used to be safe by
thirtysomelhing. Years ago, I would
have been reaching the age when I
was too old to have kids. Now, thanks
to modem technology, I can wrestle
with my innate urges vttII into my
forties. The dirty little secret about
those innate urges is that they grow
stronger. Someone once gave us the i
erstwhile image ofa "biological clock, I
ticking away/’
For a while, I wasn’t aware of the
way I looked at babies in high chairs
at Village Inn. 1 paid no attention
when my heart liquified if one of them
plastered their giant eyes on me, and
maybe smiled. Not me. Iron Maiden
of childlessness.
I didn’t pick up on it when my
friend’s little girl answered the phone
and said, “I love you aunt Debbie,”
and I levitated for the rest of the day.
It began to dawn on me when I
found myself writing out a list of
names and settled on El v is Bob for my
first bom.
I sought help. I went to Kmart,
where there arc usually so many
screaming children that I go home and
lock myself in the bathroom in fear of
holding my boyfriend’s hand. But no,
when I needed their screams most,
they smiled at me.
Then, when I need a childbirth
horror story, my cousin gives birth to
twins like falling ofT a log. She sent
me a picture of her new family right
after the fact. She looks like the sack
of wet marshmallows, for sure, but
she’s smiling.
There’s only one thing left for me
to do to maintain my environmentally
protective status as a barren woman.
I’ll call my mom and ask her again
what I was like as a kid. I j ust hope she
can keep talking until I hit meno
pause.
—- * . - --.
McAdams is a sophomore news-editorial
major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist. I
Russian Ambassador to the United States
Dr. Vladimir Lukin
Public is Invited
to a Luncheon
Thursday, March 18 12:00 noon
Nebraska Union - Centennial Room
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
To reserve your space, send a check for $8.00 to:
CBA Dean's Office
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln, NE 68588-0405
Check must arrive by Monday, March 15th. Seating is limited
first come, first served!!
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